I haven’t written a blog in a while. Life got a little hectic after my book releases, as you might expect from life at times. I don’t have much to share now, but it’s been so long that I wanted to leave something here. I had this idea the other night, the first fresh story idea in a long time. It’s only a handful of paragraphs right now, but I would love any thoughts on this little scrap of an idea. Here goes:
When I round the corner to the backyard, I have to sidestep to avoid running directly into Gabney. I bite back a curse. The aggravation chokes in my throat when I realize she’s staring at the sky and the water hose is hanging in her right hand. There was a time when I would’ve made fun of her for looking so dumb, but after she warned us of the last storm – the one nobody believed and then a lot of people died – I don’t bother her.
The hose has a nozzle on it but it leaks. For a moment, all I can hear is the water dripping on the sand. I follow her gaze upward, trying my damnedest to find something significant. She always watches the sky and trees like she sees something else. As far as I can tell, it’s a little windy, there are some clouds, and it’s hot even though it’s fairly early in the morning.
“The winds have changed direction,” Gabney says in the measured way she says most things.
“You mean-“
“They’re coming from the sea,” she cuts me off like I didn’t even speak. Likely, she didn’t notice that I did.
I try to treat her like a kid, like she’s eleven, but then she uses that tone when she says stuff like that. I check her sideways. Her ash-blonde, wispy curls are tossing around her long, sun-browned face, and her eyes are the same color as the sky is whenever the clouds break.
My stomach churns when I look up again. I don’t want to, but I wonder, “Should we be worried?”
She’s quiet for a while. I’ve gotten used to it when she does this, but she still claws at my impatience. I hear the water drip become a spray, then the spray hit the plants in the back bed. She says, “Not yet.”
Aj Elmore, Author 